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05/09/2018 08:30 AMJoanne Broga of North Haven loves to knit. She makes hats and lap warmers for veterans at the V.A., prayer shawls for St. Frances Cabrini Church, colorful baby blankets and hats for children at the Smilow Cancer Hospital, and winter hats for children with special needs at ACES school.
“It’s mostly all for Smilow, the children’s hospital,” says Joanne, 77. “I’ve been knitting a long time for them.”
It’s not just what Joanne does, but her ability to get others interested, too. She’s taught knitting both at the North Haven Senior Center and at St. Frances Cabrini Church. Although she lived in Branford for 10 years and Florida for 20 years after that, Joanne was raised in North Haven and it’s where she’s returned to take care of her husband, Richard, who is facing a long road of recovery after an aneurism.
“Most of my family is all in North Haven: my brothers, my sisters, and their families,” says Joanne, who is a mother of two (Richard Jr. and Lisa Marie) and a grandmother of three. “When my husband got sick, I said, ‘Time to go back to Connecticut.’
“He had to take an early retirement—I still take care of him,” she says. “He’s doing good; he had to learn to walk and talk all over again. You gotta do what you have to do.”
Joanne started knitting for the Connecticut Hospice in Branford—her colorful blankets can still be found there.
“Little by little it just mushroomed, but I enjoy doing it,” she says. “It’s a dying art, but people seem like they want to do it all over again.”
At St. Francis, Joanne knits with a group of about a dozen women; a smaller group joins her at the North Haven Senior Center—the group started more recently. She also has volunteers who knit for her outside of the regular groups.
“They’re grandmas and they watch their grandchildren grow up, but they’re still knitting for me for Smilow,” she says.
Before her retirement, Joanne worked as a government inspector for electronics, which meant frequent trips to Mexico and back. She enjoys her new hobby for several reasons, as do her volunteers.
“I think when you get to my age and you’re not out in the workforce anymore, but you still want to do something to make people happy, that alone is a reward for us,” she says. “We’re producing something, not just sitting in a chair watching television.”
“I also have a couple [volunteers] that have Alzheimer’s—and they can’t wait to come even though it takes them a long time to crochet something,” she adds. “They’re motivated, it’s good therapy for them.”
For both Joanne and her volunteers, knitting for a cause adds depth to the fabric of their own lives—especially considering how many individuals they’ve touched with a warm winter hat, a soft baby blanket, or a prayer shawl woven of yarn and prayer.